


I'm Not Big Enough To House This Crowd

by carolynhidthecake



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Introspection, Lower East Side, Vignette, Warning For Racist/Antisemitic Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3456800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolynhidthecake/pseuds/carolynhidthecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After running into trouble at school, a seven-year-old Benny Siegel makes his way home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Big Enough To House This Crowd

_You're fuckin' nuts, ya know? Do you even know that? You fuckin' screwy shit-brained kike! I bet he's too stupid to even know that._

Benny caught his foot on something and stumbled, thrown out of his reverie. He stared at it; a crate of potatoes. Two men were loading them out of the back of a truck, building a teetering pile. He kicked it, and kicked it again, grinning as he watched the tower begin to shake. The force of his little foot did nothing, so he threw his weight against it, giggling. He watched the whole thing fall backward into the side of the truck with a majestic crash. Benny took off, careening through the crowd and whooping.  The shouts of _Vilda chaya!_ grew fainter, drowned out by the cacophony of the Lower East Side, curses spat in too many tongues for the seven-year-old to begin to count, vendors hawking, bells ringing, car horns blaring, children squealing. No one punished the noise. No one said it was stupid or crazy. It was always leaking into his head, making everything worse. Maybe it wasn't his fault, maybe it was just the noise.

Benny slowed down after three blocks, heaving to catch his breath, disappointed to find that no one was following him. He looked up into the faces of the people passing him, pushing against his shoulders. No one was looking down. He didn't think they would, he didn't even want them to. Maybe they were all stupid. That was what they called him when he didn't notice things. Before he could even realize what he'd missed, someone would call him stupid for it. Before he could even think of something  smart to say he'd feel the tug on his ear or the hand upside the back of his head or the ruler coming down on his hand, and they would tell him to look at what he'd done and explain it. What? What the fuck had he done? He'd broken it, he'd pushed her, he'd thrown that, he'd been wrong, all wrong, everything about him was wrong. They would ask him why and he never knew what to say. He had to run away today. He had to. The worst part was never having answer for them. It meant he was stupid. Stupid people never had answers.

There was blood on his shirt. He hadn't noticed it before. It wasn't his.

_You're fuckin' nuts, ya know? Do you even know that? You fuckin' screwy shit-brained kike! I bet he's too stupid to even know that._

The boy had been older, maybe ten. He was so much taller too, and he'd found Benny on the schoolyard. "You just go around squawking like a chicken or somethin' to be funny, ya stupid shit?" Benny didn't know what the fuck the kid was talking about. He wasn't sure of what he'd been doing, but he took it as something like an invitation. He grinned big and squawked right in the kid's face, or as close as he could get on his toes. He bowed his head and butted the stupid fuck right in the chest, pushing all his weight into him. "Hey c _hachem_ , you don't speak Italian?"  The kid didn't look Italian, Irish maybe, but still Benny laughed at his own joke, squawking again as he shoved him into the brick wall. Then he was in the dirt, gagging, tears and dust blinding his eyes. The fucking mick had kneed him in the gut. Everyone was laughing. They were laughing at him.

"You're fuckin' nuts, ya know? Do you even know that? You fuckin' screwy shit-brained kike! I bet he's too stupid to even know that."

"Fuck you!" Benny was on his feet again, hands balled into little fists, punching and walloping until the kid was up against the wall. Someone screamed; he didn't know why until he saw the blood in the dirt. And the kid -- the kid was lying in the dirt. He was crying and holding his hand to his head, staring at the red on his shirt like he was dying or something. Benny later figured he'd bashed his head against a corner of brick or something. In the moment he didn't give a fuck how it happened. He cackled and kicked him in the gut again and again. A whistle sounded, piercing through the noise, and Benny ran. He ran for the fence, feet pounding the dirt, and sprang up to catch the top of it. He swung his right leg over it and strained to get the left to follow, but he made it, landing on his feet with a thud and a soft grunt, and  a few splinters in his palms. He took off from there, running the familiar way home. He could still hear the screaming and bawling, until he got out of the alley. Benny ran down the block, weaving past pushcarts and piles of trash, beating the prickling, burning energy from his feet into the sidewalk. He hooted and hummed, licking and biting his lip, grinning.

Benny was humming again as he slowed to a halt, stepping out of the swarm to lean against the side of a brownstone stair. He aimlessly knocked his heel into the gate that blocked the way to someone's apartment, banging out a loud, steady _thunk_ as he rubbed his palm over the blood stain. "Uh oh...hmm -- shit," he mumbled. It was making him anxious, imagining his mother's voice upon seeing it. He wasn't afraid of getting hit, she hardly ever struck him, and she almost never told his father,  or at least his father never said anything about it. Still, he never liked the way her voice got when she was angry with him. It made his head ring. "What are we gonna do about it?" he muttered, starting to unbutton the shirt. He shrugged off his suspenders, and pulled it off, grinning as if he'd concocted a foolproof fix. Benny turned around to throw the shirt  over the gate, and saw a girl standing at the top of the steps behind him, staring at him. She was maybe a little older; he wondered how long she'd been standing there. " _Chap a gang!_ " he spat, and threw the balled up shirt at her. It hit her on the shoulder, and she bristled, squealing, looking profoundly insulted. " _Meshuge ahf toit_!" she shouted, and ran into the building, slamming the door behind her. Her hair had been very long and pretty. He wondered what her name was.

He pulled the suspenders back over his shoulders. He was just in his undershirt now, and he felt free and at ease, with the dusty sunlight beating down on his bare neck. He started walking again, grinning, proud of his cleverness, but stopped after a few steps, realizing the flaw in his plan. He only had the three shirts, or two really; the nicest one was for _Shabbos_ , and his mother would notice if one was missing. Benny turned on his heel and scrambled up the steps to grab it. He licked his lips, bouncing in his knees, thinking, and then leapt down to the sidewalk again. He carefully placed it behind a trash can. It would stay there until he thought of what to do about the blood.

Benny started making his way down the sidewalk, less sure of himself then he was a moment ago. It bothered him. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten blood on his clothes, but _this time_ it wasn't okay. His mother would scrub it out in the sink and go on and on with the questions he didn't want to answer; the disappointment he didn't know how to apologize for.

_You're fuckin' nuts, ya know? Do you even know that?_

Benny dragged his feet along the sidewalk, knocking into a pickle cart as he passed it. The vendor shouted something at him, but he paid no attention. It was just more noise, mingling with the thick din surrounding him. The noise in his mind was thicker, heavier. _Zhu met in kop_ , his sister called it. Esther was only two years older than him, and yet she never failed to notice the way it got to him. His mother never knew, never understood the way it made his tongue prickle. He _did_ know. He knew he wasn't nuts -- he wasn't, he wasn't, he _was not --_ but he also knewthis wasn't how the rest of them worked. He imagined it was some secret they were keeping from him, maybe as a joke, to see how long it took him to figure it out for himself. That had to be it, because why else would they keep telling him he was crazy? He knew he wasn't. He wasn't. He was smart, and he knew how things worked. But they told him he wasn't, and they were supposed to know.

He wandered around a corner and cut through an alley. He preferred this way. The crowds were gone, the faces and voices were gone. Benny slipped through a dislodged board in the fence. This was his way home. He had it mapped in his mind, and tracing it with his feet assured him that he was sane. He heard excited shouting beyond it, voices his own age and older, some of them familiar. There was a dice game underway. Benny stopped for just a moment to watch, but he wasn't in the mood to loiter. He moved on before anyone could notice him. Benny knew some of them. He never felt crazy or stupid in their company. There was an understanding among them, and he had something they valued, although he wasn't sure what that was. All he knew was that they didn't push him away.

The light was changing, drawing longer shadows against the backs of buildings. Benny sauntered past stacks of brick; he cut around piles of kitchen waste, cabbage hearts and potato skins stinking in the afternoon sun; he passed under lines of hanging laundry. He jumped up to try to touch the billowing sheets, but they were all too far out of reach. Still, he didn't stop trying. He liked how clean they looked, floating above the filth, above the noise.

Benny finally, reluctantly shuffled back onto Rivington. Home was so close now. He hadn't thought of what he would tell his mother. Hiding the shirt had seemed like a good idea, but now Benny felt the familiar dread, the blame he knew he couldn't escape. He kept his eyes on the sidewalk until he made it to his block. Esther was sitting on the steps of their apartment. She stared at him, and he looked at her. Benny couldn't read her face when she looked at him like that, but it didn't scare him. Not at all.

"What happened to your shirt?" she asked when he finally made it to the bottom of the steps.

Benny blinked. "I got it dirty."

"You're supposed to be in school." There was nothing accusatory in her words, just a statement. Benny liked it when she talked to him like this. He knew what it meant.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

Esther got to her feet and met him at the bottom of the steps. "You're lucky I got my wages today," she sighed, taking him by the wrist and pulling him down the way to the candy store.

"I'm gonna get shoelaces," Benny replied, humming in his throat. He was a little sorry  that he'd taken the long way home. Less time to squander over licorice and cream soda, sitting on the sidewalk beside her, with nothing to explain or answer for. He licked his lips again, grinning at the promise of candy, and the sympathy buried beneath the few words she would speak to him. He squirmed his wrist out of her grasp to hold her hand properly, brushing his thumb against her knuckles. They pressed against the crowd, and the air heaved with grime and sound. But the way around the corner was safe, and all their own. Benny knew what to call it, fleeting as it always was. It was quiet.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Thanks so much to opheliaintherushes for helping with the Yiddish used in this work!)
> 
> -Vilda chaya: Wild animal  
> -Chachem: Genius (sarcastic)  
> -Chap a gang: Beat it  
> -Meshuge ahf toit: Crazy as a loon  
> -Zhu met in kop: A buzzing in the head


End file.
